Breaking in my new toys... from Yeehaw! to Uh oh!

[3RRL]

That still seems a lot for those teeth though. I think I paid quite a bit less for the Markham tooth bar, but so what? You got them now and they are on and working, right. I know what you mean though. I just placed an online order for Arctic Cat ATV parts and forgot to add a brake cable. They wouldn't let me add to my order and I had to pay $15 bucks in shipping for a $20 cable! If I got it all together it would've cost nothing more in shipping. Oh well...

I was thinking about how you pushed all those posts in to the same depth by eyeballing your hood. I wonder if a guy couldn't make a telescoping post driver out of 2 tubes like a PTO shaft for:

1) When it collapses fully, they are all driven to the same depth.
2) It would guide the entire post instead of just a small portion of it to keep any from bending.

The outside tube would be the finished height of the post standing above ground. The inner tube would slide in it until it was pushed even with the outer tube. Sounds like a good idea, yea?

 

[Spiveyman]

Rob, that telescoping post driving tube is a great idea. Do you want to just ship that to me when you finish making it? Will it be spring loaded or what?

That really is a great idea. My problem is that every now and then I'd hit a rock or something and the post would just stop. I could see the post start to bow out pretty good and feel the front of the tractor getting light, so I'd have to back off before I bent the post. On one of them I was able to kind of "tamp" the rod with the FEL and get it moving again without brending it, but a couple others I just left or finished by hand.

I dug out the post that gave me the idea to do that, a now good friend of mine, texasjohn, has a good picture here: FEL T-post Driver

His drivers are full length. I think he has driven a lot more posts than I have though. I don't plan on doing this very often... but we'll see.

 

[horse7]

...
So what's the best tool to grind down those welds? Will a dremel took work or is there something better? The file by hand method stinks! And the drill/router method isn't a whole lot better.
...

Circular saw with a cutoff wheel. You could cut your bucket in half with one, and it wouldn't take as long as you might imagine. Biggest issue is clearance, and you have that in your case.

I've worn out several wheels cutting rebar over the years, up to #8 bar, and some miscellaneous posts, beams, springs.... if you need fine control, a die grinder with a smaller wheel, or an air powered muffler cutoff tool works well. But those latter of course add to the tool collection, while everyone has a circular saw-- metal blade guard is a good idea unless you like melted plastic-- or find an old beat up saw at a yard sale. I have an ancient Craftsman aluminum just for steel cutting, keep the cutoff wheel in it ready to go.

[wear eye protection, the bits of burning iron go a long way-- pretty spectacular at night. Those sparkly things eat the hair off your arms too... guess how I know... shoulda been wearing gloves at least that time!]

 

[sandman2234]

My new neighbor to be called twice on Sunday, once to borrow my p/u truck to pick up some lumber at the local box store, and the second time to borrow my circular saw. With as many tools as I have, I think he thought I was lying when I told him I didn't have an operational circular saw. I don't remember the last time I needed one, as 99.99% of my work is done using metal, and the metal cutting saws will usually handle a piece of wood every now and then. To cut with a circular saw, would be adding to my tool collection, which really isn't a bad idea, most of the time, unless you have a neighbor like the one building next door, who would rather put his money in appearances, instead of tools.
David from jax

 

[JC-jetro]

Circular saw with a cutoff wheel. ]

That'll work, but I found side grinder with a cut off wheel a bit safer and easier to control. I have cut many re bars effortlessly with it.

JC,

 

[GordonR]

Yeah, this will definitely affect my future purchasing decisions. I planned to order a back hoe for my tractor through this dealer, but now I'm not sure. I'm not sure where else I'd get it. I can't haul my tractor, and these guys will come get it for free, so that is nice. I guess there are trade off's.



Howdy, welcome to TBN. I appreciate your input. I'm surprised though. Well... come to think of it, I do the same thing... I guess I'm thinking the heater is going to be pulling way more amps than the Christmas lights. I know that water doesn't conduct electricity, maybe the rain is pure enough that it won't cause a problem, but it sure seems like there's a good chance something will go wrong. I stopped by Lowe's last night and bought some stuff that I am going to rig up. May be overkill, but afterall, this is America, right?

Spiveyman
If water does not conduct electricty there would be no need for g.f.i. circuits in a house or anywhere else. As to your cable run bury it in conduit and forget about it for the rest of forever.
Don't mean to sound harsh but have shot myself in the foot to many times trying to save a penny and costing myself dollars on the backside
Have enjoyed your posts and pics
Don

 

[GordonR]

spiveyman;
your bucket teeth look good and a great job of installing them you did.
a suggestion from an old field mech.
get another bucket for when you don't need the teeth.
The problem you will encounter trying to remove the teeth is that the heads of the nuts and bolts will be distorted and a wrench won't be able to get a good grip on them at that point.
A portable A/O cutting setup will save a lot of skinned knuckles and bad words trying to remove them if it is neccessary.
Don

 

[Spiveyman]

...If water does not conduct electricty there would be no need for g.f.i. circuits in a house or anywhere else.

Howdy GordonR, seriously, water does not conduct electricity. Don't believe me? Try it, set up a boiler/condensor collect pure distilled water and put a couple of electrodes in it. You won't get a signal. But everyone knows water + electricity is bad right? That's because water is also an excellent solvent when it comes to salts. When the salts dissolve they dissociate into their ionic forms. Those ions will conduct electricity readily in the water, but the hydrogen and oxygen will not. To contrast with the distilled water test above, pour regular dry table salt into a glass, drop those electrodes in there and you'll get a signal. You wouldn't think the dry salt would conduct while the distilled water would not, but that's what cool about science. One of the ways that you test Deionized water (DI Water) is by testing the resistance of the water. The higher the resistance, the better the DI water.

My point above is that rain water is more likely to be "pure" as it was condenced from its vapor form which would not carry salts. An electrical connection exposed just to rain water might be OK, but water that is pooled on the ground or under ground would easily have salts/minerals in it from the soil, or whatever fertilizer you'd put down.

Either way your other point about the conduit pretty much trumps the whole deal. Keep it dry and it doesn't matter.

Don't mean to sound harsh but have shot myself in the foot to many times trying to save a penny and costing myself dollars on the backside

No prob man, I can take it. That's not harsh at all, I appreciate the straight talk.

get another bucket for when you don't need the teeth.

I hear you. Thus my suggestion to get another bucket... attached to another FEL... attached to another tractor

Seriously, though, I'm still trying to figure out when I would need a bucket without the teeth. What job requires a bucket without teeth?

 

[Spiveyman]

OK, verdict is in, I'm a big fan of the bucket teeth. Finally got, well HAD to get them dirty. I went out to the farm to work on fences some more. After a few hours of that I took a break and checked on the watering tank... aaarg!!! One of the cattle got in the tank and busted out the heater, stripped the threads on the nut (rubber made tank and heater) that left about a 3" diameter hole in the bottom of the tank. I had partly burried the tank, so that was a good thing and a bad thing. We have serious clay soil, that holds water very well, so it wasn't leaking as bad as it could have been. It was actually still full, but there was a ring of mud all around the tank and running down the hill. Since it was partly burried, to fix it, the tank had to come up.

I don't have any pictures sadly, but it was a blast. After baling out about 120 gal of the water I took the FEL bucket and dug down under the tank, popped it right out. The soil was vey soft due to the leaking water, that and the teeth made that bucket dig like it was in butter. Amazing!!!

I decided I didn't like that set up, and there was the whole extension cord out in the elements issue. So, I cut out about 16 feet of the fence. Here's a picture of the pen beside the barn, the field where we graze in on the other side of the fence.

I had dropped that tank right in the ground on the other side of the fence there so the cattle could get it. But today, I took out that corner section and brought the tank up right next to the barn. The tank will be on top of the ground so I can deal with it if need be, and the cord for the heater will be under the roof of the barn, so no worries about keeping it dry. Not sure why I didn't do this before other than not wanting to just cut out a section of fence. The FEL came in handy there too with those teeth. I cut the wires on each end then used the FEL to grab the whole thing and rip it out!!! That was so much fun, then dumped it over into another pen where I'll deal with it later. It is so cool to have that FEL to do stuff like that. My tractor's never been that muddy before either. I was sliding all over the place in all the mud made by that leak. That's another reason I didn't get pictures, I was covered in mud too. My wife would have killed me if I'd mucked up her camera.

I'll get more pics next time. We're going to rip that whole fence out and put up a more sturdy fence for cattle. Lots of tractor work that day.

 

[Rara Avis]

My point above is that rain water is more likely to be "pure" as it was condenced from its vapor form which would not carry salts. An electrical connection exposed just to rain water might be OK, but water that is pooled on the ground or under ground would easily have salts/minerals in it from the soil, or whatever fertilizer you'd put down.

Unless you are East of the midwestern power plants...

Acid rain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seriously, though, I'm still trying to figure out when I would need a bucket without the teeth. What job requires a bucket without teeth?

Back-dragging with the FEL...